Apple Back to Printing Money – Projections of a Blowout Quarter

Apple is back as Wall Street’s darling. The company is just a day away from announcing its first quarter fiscal earnings for 2015, and analysts are bullish. According a report in the Financial Times, some analysts are expecting Apple to announce it sold more iPhones in China than it did in the United States.

UBS is estimating China accounted for 36 percent of iPhone shipments, compared to 24 percent to the United States. Comparing the numbers to 2013, the disparity grows. In 2013, the United States accounted for 29 percent, and China at 22 percent.

Breaking it down to hard numbers, Creative Strategies is projecting 2 million more iPhones were sold in China over the United States. I guess we see why the one smuggler had nearly 100 phones taped to his body.

Partnerships have been at the forefront of Apple’s surge into China. In 2014, Apple signed a distribution deal with China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier. The deal gave Apple a massive footprint in over 3,000 cities, areas where they had been notably absent.

Apple’s push into China has been growing for some time. Partnerships with Alipay and plans for multiple Apple stores have further entrenched the company in the country. The company also had high-level meetings with the Chinese government to discuss data privacy and security.

The stock is trading slightly higher this morning as most of the market fights headwinds emerging out of the election results in Greece. With analysts upping targets, Apple will have to post a sizable beat to push the shares up in a big way.